June 30 – Half an hour before kick-off, as the Lightning Seeds’ famous Three Lions anthem was belted out over the tannoy, England’s legions of fans, who made the Arena AufShalke a home from home, did their best to join in, even if their timing was not quite in sync.
Football Coming Home? Not for 95 minutes it wasn’t until a quite extraordinary denouement when England, seemingly on the end of a humiliating exit at Euro 2024, turned their last-16 tie with Slovakia on its head to win 2-1 after extra time and book an unlikely quarterfinal meeting with Switzerland.
Abject embarrassment to unbridled joy in the flick of a switch. At least for England. For Slovakia, ranked 45th in the world, gut-wrenching despair, the greatest day in their footballing history cruelly snatched from their grasp.
The last time Slovakia reached the knockout stages of a European Championship, eight years ago, they were swept aside 3-0 by Germany. But after beating Group F favourites Belgium at Euro 2024, the team’s self-confidence was at an all-time high.
They genuinely believed they could hurt England, masterminded by their Italian coach, the former coffee sales rep Francesco Calzona though reaching a European Championship quarterfinal would be the biggest achievement for a country of 5.5 million people since becoming independent in 1993.
They may have been rank outsiders, after all they hadn’t beaten England in six previous attempts, but they were no footballing minnows as their win over Belgium showed in the group stage.
Plus don’t forget that in qualifying, they suffered only two narrow defeats against Portugal, and were otherwise pretty convincing as they bought into a new, more attacking style under Calzona.
They made their intentions clear early doors with a series of swift counter-attacks including a glorious three-man move that ended with David Hancko flashing a shot narrowly wide.
Gareth Southgate’s team needed to shake off their nerves and lethargy. Kieran Trippier, who has never looked comfortable on the left side of the defence, blasted over but Slovakia were still making most of the running and Jude Bellingham became the third England player booked inside 20 minutes for chopping down Lukas Haraslín.
The men in white were falling into the familiar trap of too many misplaced passes while Slovakia, playing as a team, knew exactly what their roles were and midway through the half they struck with a peach of a goal as Ivan Shranz was played in behind the England defence, stayed on his feet and poked the ball home.
It was no less than they deserved. England had simply not come out of their collective shell despite all the pre-match talk about knockout football providing a different mentality.
Having fallen behind for the first time in the tournament, would the real England emerge from their slumber? For the most part they continued to huff and puff without a single shot on target – an all too familiar scenario.
Surely they would come out firing second half and start to stretch their opponents?
They thought they had levelled when Phil Foden netted from close range but he had strayed into an offside position.
Now it was attack versus defence – except for a moment of madness from goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. David Strelec, in the centre-circle, spotted the England keeper well off his line and went for goal, the ball falling agonisingly wide much to Pickford’s relief.
England were at least building some tempo but they were running out of time to harness all their individual talent into a winning formula
What could Southgate – European finalist and World Cup semifinalist during his managerial tenure – do to save what would surely be the wrath of the country pouring down on him?.
Send on Cole Palmer was his decision, for the limping Trippier. But with Saka now switched to an unfamiliar leftback role, there was still no incisiveness and a lack of communication to show for all England’s possession as Slovakia’s defence, marshalled superbly by their skipper Milan Skriniar, gobbled everything up.
England needed that one big chance to save their tournament but when Declan Rice found space to hammer a 20-yarder against the post, the mother of all last-16 upsets exit looked ever more likely.
Until…
With literally seconds left on the clock and both teams having made a flurry of substitutions, Jude Bellingham, who had done precious little of note, got England out of jail.
One last throw-in was flicked on at the near post by Guehi, and the Real Madrid star produced a sublime acrobatic overhead kick from 10 yards to save his team’s blushes and force extra time
It was England’s first shot on target but great players have a way of doing that kind of thing. Class is permanent.
Could England go on and deliver another blow? Oh my, they could. Less than a minute into extra time, Slovakia’s defence, shellshocked for the first time, got in all sorts of a tangle and Harry Kane headed home emphatically for 2-1.
Slovakia so nearly equalised through a Peter Pekaric volley and tried everything they could as they forced England, now hanging on for dear life, to retreat. But they simply couldn’t take the game to penalties and at the final whistle their crestfallen players slumped to the ground in tearful dejection.
England, by contrast, somehow move on. For large periods they were again mediocre but better to be lucky than good.
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